CMYK process printing

[Kellan3737]

Hey everyone,

I have been having a few issues on my cmyk process prints lately for clothing, and have actually been asked to help a skateboard company setup and produce cmyk prints on transfer sheets for their skateboard graphics.  I was wondering if anyone has a solid step by step instruction list they would be willing to help me out with to better my knowledge of the process.

I took at course in 2010 and was taught and took notes on doing all the photoshop per press setup in RGB before converting to cmyk and outputting to films,  but I have been having issues and it is slightly frustrating.  Just wondering if someone out there has a fool proof process they can help me out with and get me on my way.

thanks,

Kellan!

[cbjamel]

What type ink are you going to use for skateboards? Plastisol?

Shane

[Denis Kolar]

The easiest steps would be, send it out to separator
Second easiest would be, get a separating software and learn the steps you need to do before outputting.

Third and the most painful way manually separate it which I do not know how to do.

I had done a few CMYK prints after I separated it with UltraSeps (Trial version) and I liked the result. I have bought the UltraSeps last week and I hope to play with it a bit more when I get a chance.

Good luck

[Kellan3737]

The ink for printing on the skateboard transfer sheets is TW brand waterbased ink.

and I have the manual separations and then use accu rip to print each separate channel,  Im just wondering if anyone has good steps to follow to set the artwork up nicely before printing, unless a software is the best bet for something like that.

[blue moon]

the only thing that I can think of is boosting the colors a little before splitting the channels. Even this is going to depend on the art you are using.

In Photoshop, you can just convert to CMYK, but I have never gotten good results with that (even after adjusting black generation and using the correct magic numbers for the ink).

Software just outright fails every now and then, but can produce good results with the right type of art (or so has been my experience).

The manual tweaking will be different for every job and that's what the experienced separators do. Dan does CMYK same way as simulated process and short of knowing what he does (and I don't even though we print several of his jobs per week) it will be hard to get good CMYK prints. There is no question, Dan's seps compared to Photoshop seps are not even in the same city, let alone ballpark. The only way I've had good predictable results was to send it out for separation. Doing it on your own gets frustrating rather quickly.

pierre

[Kellan3737]

the only thing that I can think of is boosting the colors a little before splitting the channels. Even this is going to depend on the art you are using.

In Photoshop, you can just convert to CMYK, but I have never gotten good results with that (even after adjusting black generation and using the correct magic numbers for the ink).

Software just outright fails every now and then, but can produce good results with the right type of art (or so has been my experience).

The manual tweaking will be different for every job and that's what the experienced separators do. Dan does CMYK same way as simulated process and short of knowing what he does (and I don't even though we print several of his jobs per week) it will be hard to get good CMYK prints. There is no question, Dan's seps compared to Photoshop seps are not even in the same city, let alone ballpark. The only way I've had good predictable results was to send it out for separation. Doing it on your own gets frustrating rather quickly.

pierre

Who is this Dan you speak of?  I was thinking about sending the artwork to copyartwork.com  does anyone have a better option for a company to try?

thanks,

Kellan

[blue moon]

the only thing that I can think of is boosting the colors a little before splitting the channels. Even this is going to depend on the art you are using.

In Photoshop, you can just convert to CMYK, but I have never gotten good results with that (even after adjusting black generation and using the correct magic numbers for the ink).

Software just outright fails every now and then, but can produce good results with the right type of art (or so has been my experience).

The manual tweaking will be different for every job and that's what the experienced separators do. Dan does CMYK same way as simulated process and short of knowing what he does (and I don't even though we print several of his jobs per week) it will be hard to get good CMYK prints. There is no question, Dan's seps compared to Photoshop seps are not even in the same city, let alone ballpark. The only way I've had good predictable results was to send it out for separation. Doing it on your own gets frustrating rather quickly.

pierre

Who is this Dan you speak of?  I was thinking about sending the artwork to copyartwork.com  does anyone have a better option for a company to try?

thanks,

Kellan

Kellan,

Dan is the Dot Tone Dan, moderator on this forum (has a banner in rotation on the top). He has separated the art that brought us Gold and Silver at this year's ISS show and two Golden Image awards at the SGIA conferences. With his seps, we have been winning at almost every competition we submit to. Last year's SGIA had seven winners in the garment category and only three were from USA. Competition there is a killer and there is no way we could have done it without Dan.

pierre